How to Streamline Your Street Performance Rig

Picture this: bustling streets, eager crowds...and a tangle of cables and gear to set up. Wouldn't it be great to spend less time setting up and more time playing for your audience?

Your street performance rig should be simple, versatile, and effective, allowing you to focus on what matters most—playing your heart out for your fans. However, delivering an amplified performance on the street usually requires a lot of gear, making it challenging to keep everything organized and streamlined.

In this article, we'll share tips, strategies, and gear recommendations to help you streamline your street performance or busking setup. The crowd won't wait forever, so let's dive in!

Only Keep What You Can Carry 

The ultimate streamlined busking rig is one that can be carried in a single trip. Some performers have the ability to drive to, set up and perform at one location. But for many street performers, having a streamlined rig is a necessity. We’re looking at you big city buskers who have to rely on public transportation. 

Limit the gear you bring to what you can realistically and safely carry. Focus on the essentials—your must-have items to entertain the crowd and put on a show you’re proud of. 

As a practical tip, try this. The next time you go busking, survey your gear and remove one item you think you could do without. Then go perform! If your set is successful, then you don’t really need that piece of equipment and it can be removed from regular use. Heck, even sell it and invest in something else you’ve been wanting. 

Learn How to Power Your Busking Rig 

Busking allows you to perform in some incredible places like packed city centers and scenic seasides. The only thing is, those places don’t usually come with a handy way to power your rig. And street performers have been trying to crack the code on what to use as a portable, reliable power source for years. 

Common solutions include using portable power stations like Jackery, Bluetti, GoalZero or similar. But those power stations are expensive, usually going for $10 per watt of power, which puts a 100-watt power station around the $1,000 price point. And they’re not meant for power-hungry gear like portable PAs, amps, and other musical instruments. So even if that 100-watt station were cheaper, it would still leave you playing an “acoustic” set before too long. 

Of course you could always go the car battery route, but you’re trying to build a reputation as a serious musician not jumpstart someone on the side of the road. Plus, batteries aren’t meant to be out in the elements—they corrode, they leak, and you don’t want that anywhere near your expensive gear. 

So, what to do? 

Battery-powered gear simplifies your rig and answers the big question of how to get reliable, portable power anywhere you want to perform. Just know that not all battery-powered PAs, amplifiers, etc. are not created equal. Some are even bulkier than their traditional counterparts, while others only hold a charge for a few hours before needing to be plugged in. 

To find the right battery-powered portable PA, think about what features are most important to you. 

If you need maximum battery life, we recommend checking out the Mackie Thump GO. It’s super portable and delivers up to 12 hours of battery life so you can perform how you want, for as long as you want. 

Looking to deliver powerful, high-volume performances? Check out the Mackie Thrash212 GO. Its dual 12” drivers are powered by a 300W amplifier that ensures that even the people at the back of the crowd will hear you loud and clear. 

Simplify Your Recording & Livestream Setup

It’s important to make the most impact with your performance as possible. That’s why many buskers and street performers record or livestream their sets. Doing so means your reach isn’t limited to the people on the streets, you’re also reaching a global audience that can watch you live on social media or discover your recordings on a music streaming service. If you’re not already incorporating video into your sets, give it a try. It’s a game changer. 

What’s the best way to do it? 

In the spirit of streamlining your performance rig, we recommend keeping things simple. There’s no need to invest in an expensive mirrorless camera, route that to a laptop, etc. That’s just more gear to buy, power and carry around. Try these options instead. 

Keep it simple with a smartphone and a microphone—something like a RODE VideoMicro. It’s a great way to start engaging your online audience and see if there’s room to grow your following. Another great thing about using a smartphone rig to livestream your set, is everyone knows how to use one. So if you have a partner or friend tagging along for a set, they can handle the stream while you focus on performing. 

If you want to streamline your rig and level up your recording and live streaming at the same time, you’ll want to check out Mackie MobileMix. It’s small, battery powered, highly portable and makes connecting to any professional DSLR or mirrorless camera a snap. You can even stream directly via bluetooth for an even easier pro capture option. 

Use Versatile Street Performance Gear

We all have our favorite gear—the vintage tube amp, a pedalboard that has more boxes than an Amazon fulfillment center, a dedicated mixer that adds the extra magic. And while all that gear has its place in the studio or at a traditional gig, it’s important to travel lighter when busking.

But don’t worry, no one is saying you have to sacrifice your sound or play your instrument through a dry signal chain. To streamline your street performance rig, you have to double down on versatility. For example, try these out. 

Instead of bringing a full pedal board, use a multi-fx pedal to get all your favorite tones in one box. The good news is, there are a lot of good ones out there. Some of our favs are the IK Multimedia TONE-X pedal, Line6 HX One, or the Eventide H-90. This will streamline your rig, keep your top effects just a tap away, and make it easier to pack up and move to your next busking location. 

Another tip is to replace two pieces of gear like your PA and amplifier with one simple solution like a battery-powered PA/amp combo. This one’s simple—it’s portable, powered by the same battery, and shrinks your overall footprint so you can perform anywhere. 

But if you’re looking for the ultimate way to streamline your performance rig, the Mackie Showbox is the answer. It’s a complete busking solution that brings together everything we’ve covered in this article. 

Showbox is battery powered and delivers up to 12 hours of performance. It’s a powerful PA that boasts 400W of instrument crowd-pleasing, hear-you-two-streets-over sound. And it gives you the ability to record your set with an SD card, stream via USB-C and even play backing tracks via Bluetooth®. But wait there’s more…

Mackie Showbox features a switchable “PA” and “amp” voicing modes that replace your amp and PA system with one piece of gear. It even has six effects engines that deliver the sound of your favorite pedals like fuzz, overdrive, tube models, acoustic amp simulation, tremolo, delay, reverb…the list goes on. And it even has an onboard mixer so you can dial in your performance even further. It really is the Swiss Army knife of street performance equipment. 

Pack Up & Perform Your Heart Out

Streamlining your street performance rig makes it easier for you to perform more often and stay safe while doing it. But remember that the gear will only get you so far. Mackie Showbox is an incredible tool that makes it easy to sound your best. But never forget that what people want is a great performance. They’re here for you and the music—we’re just proud to be along for the ride. 

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